Here at the IAJ, we have long been a fan -- and user -- of Prof. Robert Sahr's "Inflation Conversion Factors" web site and tools. We were snoozing at the switch a bit and didn't notice that Sahr updated the site in early June 2009. Check it out: it's filled with both PDF and Excel data/tools to calculate the comparative costs of most anything from 1774 to 2019. The site also includes some fun data:
The charts on the following topics are available either by scrolling down or by selecting the appropriate link:
European Journalism Observatory, September 26, 2009
Many journalists face difficulties in dealing with statistics, and frequently lack the competence to present quantitative information to their publics in easy-to-grasp language.
This is nothing new, as most journalism textbooks contain tips on how to deal adequately with numbers and percentages. Thus far, these remain rules of thumb. Three U.S. researchers – Coy Callison, Rhonda Gibson and Dolf Zillmann – recently tested these rules. Drawing from 240 students who participated in an experiment, their empirical analysis provides new, surprising insights.
The test subjects could deal as easily with percentages as with absolute numbers. Contrary to textbooks, they experienced more difficulties when percentages were characterized verbally. For example, “30 percent of the citizens of XY have AIDS” has a meaning different from “3000 of the citizens of XY have AIDS” – but the percentage is no more difficult to grasp and remember. If, instead, the percentage is transformed into the phrase “Three of ten of the citizens of XY have AIDS,” an additional barrier of comprehension is created. The researchers mention, however, that their experiments should be expanded, and that less educated groups still need to be included.
Coy Callison et al.: How to Report Quantitative Information in News Stories, Newspaper Research Journal, Vol 30/Nr. 2, Spring 2009, 43-55.
We don't know how long this one's been around, but kudos to the gang at the WashPost for taking a concept/tool somewhat on the margin and putting it to good use for both reporters and readers. See http://projects.washingtonpost.com/potus-tracker/
Every day President Obama meets with key members of his administration, Congress, foreign dignitaries, interest groups and regular citizens. Use our interactive database to track how Obama is spending his time, what issues are getting the most attention and who is influencing the debate. Subscribe to daily schedule via RSS.
CREDIT: Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso, Madonna Lebling, Karen Yourish, Ryan O'Neil, Wilson Andrews, Jacqueline Kazil, Todd Lindeman, Lucy Shackelford, Paul Volpe
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Nathan, over at FlowingData, has posted a fine example of infographics. The work of Willard C. Brinton is a nice extension of what was being done by U.S. government agencies. Turns out, Brinton's book can be found in used book sites, and at an affordable price.
Someone needs to get me a paper copy of Willard Cope Brinton's Graphic Presentation (1939), because it is awesome.
Brinton discusses various forms of graphic presentation in the 524-page book and what works and what doesn't. There's also some good stuff in there about how to make your graphs, charts, maps, etc (by hand).
Have we seen these?
The most interesting part is that many of the graphics - despite having no computers in 1939 - look a lot like what we have today. Albeit, they're a little rougher because they're made by hand, but that's just added flavor.
For example, you've got the Sankey diagram above, or a "cosmograph" as Brinton calls it. The instructions read:
One thousand strips of paper are set on edge to represent 100% and are separated into component parts of 100%.
What? You want me to arrange 1,000 strips of paper to make my diagram? Brilliant, I say.
Here are your choropleth maps...
network diagram...
and of course some of your usual suspects...
The entire book is freely available in PDF format, but it's low resolution and takes forever to browse. Michael Stoll has posted some higher quality shots on Flickr.
I still want more though.
Seriously, does anyone know where I can get a copy?
Mary Ellen Bates offers up this good tip on "Google Squared" at
Bates Information Services, www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html ________________________________________________________________________________________
August 2009
Google Squared
Google Labs -- the public playground where Google lets users try out new products or services that aren't yet ready for prime time -- is my secret weapon for learning about cool new stuff. My favorite new discovery in Google Labs is Google Squared. It's a demonstration of a search engine trying to provide answers instead of just sites, and at a higher level than the simple "smart answers" you see when you search for "time in Rome" ... more»
OK, OK. Using R can be a steep hill to climb for some. But here, thanks to O"Reilly Radar, is a pretty good video of a presentation on using R as a Social Network Analysis tool.
Update II: It occurred to me that it would be much better for people to be able to view the entire talk in a single video, rather than having to switch between sections; therefore, I uploaded the whole thing to Vimeo.
Tonight I will be givingOn August 6th I gave a talk at the New York City R Meetup on how to perform social network analysis in R using the igraph package. Below are the slides I will be going over covered during the talk, and all of the code examples from the presentation are available in the ZIA Code Repository in the R folder.
Below is a video of this talk, with a link to the slides I review during the presentation. If you are interested, I suggest downloading the slides and following along with videos while having the slides open, as much of what is on the screen in the video is hard to read.
Andrew Little’s presentation on econometrics in R using Zelig and MatchIt are also available on YouTube starting here. I hope you enjoy the presentation, and please let me know if you have any questions or comments.
And does this suggest possibility of something like "distributed data analysis" whereby a number of widely scattered watchdogs could be poking into the same data set? If so, raises interesting questions for journalism educators: who is developing the tools to manage such investigations?
In February 2007, Mike Adams, who had recently joined Automattic, the company that makes WordPress, decided on a lark to endow all blogs running on WordPress.com with the ability to use LaTeX, the venerable mathematical typesetting language. So I can write this:
Odd as it may sound, I miss all the equations from my days in grad school, so I decided that what WordPress.com needed most was a hot, niche feature that maybe 17 people would use regularly.
A whole lot more than 17 people cared. And some of them, it turns out, are Fields medalists. Back in January, one member of that elite group — Tim Gowers — asked: Is massively collaborative mathematics possible? Since then, as reported by observer/participant Michael Nielsen (1, 2), Tim Gowers, Terence Tao, and a bunch of their peers have been pioneering a massively collaborative approach to solving hard mathematical problems.
Reflecting on the outcome of the first polymath experiment, Michael Nielsen wrote:
The scope of participation in the project is remarkable. More than 1000 mathematical comments have been written on Gowers’ blog, and the blog of Terry Tao, another mathematician who has taken a leading role in the project. The Polymath wiki has approximately 59 content pages, with 11 registered contributors, and more anonymous contributors. It’s already a remarkable resource on the density Hales-Jewett theorem and related topics. The project timeline shows notable mathematical contributions being made by 23 contributors to date. This was accomplished in seven weeks.
Just this week, a polymath blog has emerged to serve as an online home for the further evolution of this approach.
An intriguing op-ed in The Washington Post on Saturday (June 20, 2009) claimed to spot fraud in the Iran elections by applying some analytic methods basically drawn from Benford's Law. Yes, read the article, but be sure to drill down into the 140+ comments. Most quite cogent and well argued.
Since the declaration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide victory in Iran's presidential election, accusations of fraud have swelled. Against expectations from pollsters and pundits alike, Ahmadinejad did surprisingly well in urban areas, including Tehran -- where he is thought to be highly unpopu...By Bernd Beber and Alexandra Scacco
Nathan, the chap who curates the valuable blog Flowing Data, offers up a bit of hope for journalists who are worried about their employment futures and yet have invested in learning methods of data analysis. When thinking about re-inventing ourselves, consider the phrase "data scientist."
As we've all read by now, Google's chief economist Hal Varian commented in January that the next sexy job in the next 10 years would be statisticians. Obviously, I whole-heartedly ... more»
The Interaction Design Pilot Year is a full-time intense curriculum that includes a number of skills-based modules (such as video prototyping and computational design), followed by in-depth investigations in to graphical/tangible interfaces and service design.
The end result? A lot of great work from some talented and motivated students. There are a number of project modules, but naturally, I'm most drawn to the interactive data visualization projects. Here are a few of the projects.
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Many journalists face difficulties in dealing with statistics, and frequently lack the competence to present quantitative information to their publics in easy-to-grasp language.
